Nokia was the big mobile loser in 2012

Samsung and Apple continue to dominate

Nokia witnessed its global mobile phone market share drop significantly over the course of last year while Apple and Samsung continued to grow.

According to analyst firm Gartner the Finnish manufacturer saw a year on year drop of 4.7 per cent, with a larger 5.4 per cent decline in the final quarter of last year.

Apple and Samsung on the other hand managed to increase their dominance in the market, with the firms now controlling 52 per cent of all smartphone sales.

Record breaking smartphones

Smartphone sales were at a record high during the fourth quarter of 2012 with 207.7 million units being snapped up by consumers, which is up almost 40 per cent over the same period in 2011.

On the flip side feature phones continue to decline, partly due to the swath of affordable Android smartphones now on the market, with sales down almost 20 per cent year on year.

Possibly the biggest winner from these results is Chinese firm Huawei which now sits comfortably in third place in the global smartphone sales ranking, although there's quite a gap between it and second place Apple.